Reading 119/341, 2 Chronicles 6-8

...2 Chronicles...

Then spoke Solomon, the Lord has said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. But I have built you a house of habitation, and a place for you to dwell in forever. The king turned his face, and blessed all the assembly of Israel, and all the assembly of Israel stood. He said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who spoke with his mouth to David my father, and has with his hands fulfilled it, saying, Since the day that I brought forth my people out of the land of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build a house in, that my name might be there; nor chose I any man to be prince over my people Israel, but I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there, and have chosen David to be over my people Israel. Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. But the Lord said to David my father, Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart, nevertheless you shall not build the house; but your son who shall come forth out of your body, he shall build the house for my name. The Lord has performed his word that he spoke; for I am risen up in the room of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised, and have built the house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. There have I set the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord, which he made with the children of Israel. He stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands (for Solomon had made a bronze scaffold, five cubits long, and five cubits broad, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court, and on it he stood, and kneeled down on his knees before all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven;) and he said, the Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven, or on earth; who keep covenant and loving kindness with your servants, who walk before you with all their heart; who have kept with your servant David my father what you did promise him, yes, you spoke with your mouth, and have fulfilled it with your hand, as it is this day. Now therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel, keep with your servant David my father what you have promised him, saying, There shall not fail you a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children take heed to their way, to walk in my law as you have walked before me. Now therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel, let your word be verified, which you spoke to your servant David. But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you; how much less this house which I have built! Yet have you respect to the prayer of your servant, and to his supplication, the Lord my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you; that your eyes may be open toward this house day and night, toward the place where you have said that you would put your name; to listen to the prayer which your servant shall pray toward this place. Listen to the petitions of your servant, and of your people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place, yes, hear from your dwelling place, from heaven, and when you hear, forgive. If a man sin against his neighbor, and an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and he comes and swears before your altar in this house; then hear from heaven, and do, and judge your servants, bringing retribution to the wicked, to bring his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness. If your people Israel be struck down before the enemy, because they have sinned against you, and shall turn again and confess your name, and pray and make supplication before you in this house; then hear from heaven, and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land which you gave to them and to their fathers. When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you do afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and send rain on your land, which you have given to your people for an inheritance. If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever disease or whatever sickness there be; whatever prayer and supplication be made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall know every man his own disease and his own sorrow, and shall spread forth his hands toward this house, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place and forgive, and render to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know; (for you, you only, know the hearts of the children of men;) that they may fear you, to walk in your ways, so long as they live in the land which you gave to our fathers. Moreover concerning the immigrant, who is not of your people Israel, when he shall come from a far country for your great name's sake, and your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm; when they shall come and pray toward this house, then hear from heaven, from your dwelling place, and do according to all that the immigrant calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, and fear you, as does your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name. If your people go out to battle against their enemies, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to you toward this city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name; then hear from heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause. If they sin against you (for there is no man who does not sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to a land far off or near; yet if they shall repent themselves in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done perversely, and have dealt wickedly; if they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have carried them captive, and pray toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, and the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name, then hear from heaven, from your dwelling place, their prayer and their petitions, and maintain their cause, and forgive your people who have sinned against you. Now, my God, let, I beg you, your eyes be open, and let your ears be attentive, to the prayer that is made in this place. Now therefore arise, the Lord God, into your resting place, you, and the ark of your strength, let your priests, the Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let your saints rejoice in goodness. The Lord God, do not turn away the face of your anointed, remember your loving kindnesses to David your servant. Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. The priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord's house. All the children of Israel looked on, when the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord was on the house, and they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshiped, and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his loving kindness endures for ever. Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before the Lord. King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. The priests stood, according to their offices; the Levites also with instruments of music of the Lord, which David the king had made to give thanks to the Lord, (for his loving kindness endures for ever), when David praised by their ministry, and the priests sounded trumpets before them, and all Israel stood. Moreover Solomon made the middle of the court holy that was before the house of the Lord; for there he offered the burnt offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt offering, and the grain offering, and the fat. So Solomon held the feast at that time seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt. On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days. On the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent the people away to their tents, joyful and glad of heart for the goodness that the Lord had shown to David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people. Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and he successfully completed all that came into Solomon's heart to make in the house of the Lord, and in his own house. The Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him, I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now my eyes shall be open, and my ears attentive, to the prayer that is made in this place. For now have I chosen and made this house holy, that my name may be there forever, and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. As for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my ordinances; then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, according as I covenanted with David your father, saying, There shall not fail you a man to be ruler in Israel. But if you turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them, and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. This house, which is so high, everyone who passes by it shall be astonished, and shall say, Why has the Lord done thus to this land, and to this house? They shall answer, Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshiped them, and served them, therefore has he brought all this evil on them. It happened at the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the house of the Lord, and his own house, that the cities which Huram had given to Solomon, Solomon built them, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there. Solomon went to Hamath Zobah, and prevailed against it. He built Tadmor in the desert, and all the storage cities, which he built in Hamath. Also he built Beth Horon the upper, and Beth Horon the lower, fortified cities, with walls, gates, and bars, and Baalath, and all the storage cities that Solomon had, and all the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. As for all the people who were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel; of their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel did not consume, of them did Solomon conscripted forced labor to this day. But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no servants for his work; but they were men of war, and chief of his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen. These were the chief officers of king Solomon, two-hundred fifty, who ruled over the people. Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David to the house that he had built for her; for he said, My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because the places where the ark of the Lord has come are holy. Then Solomon offered burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord, which he had built before the porch, as the duty of every day required, offering according to the commandment of Moses, on the Sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the set feasts, three times in the year, in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tents. He appointed, according to the ordinance of David his father, the divisions of the priests to their service, and the Levites to their offices, to praise, and to minister before the priests, as the duty of every day required; the doorkeepers also by their divisions at every gate, for so had David the man of God commanded. They did not depart from the commandment of the king to the priests and Levites concerning any matter, or concerning the treasures. Now all the work of Solomon was prepared to the day of the foundation of the house of the Lord, and until it was finished. So the house of the Lord was completed. Then went Solomon to Ezion Geber, and to Eloth, on the seashore in the land of Edom. Huram sent him ships and servants who had knowledge of the sea by the hands of his servants, and they came with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and fetched from there four hundred fifty talents of gold, and brought them to king Solomon.